As Ralph grew stronger, his memory came back to him, and he asked for details of the battle. He knew they were defeated, but he did not know the extent of the catastrophe. Gradually the fearful nature of the defeat dawned upon him; but it was long before he could realise it. The noble Captain of the Wight, Maurice Woodville, all these strong and lusty men, Dicky Cheke, all gone! It was too much. Ralph turned away, and sobbed. The utter desolation of it all, his own physical prostration, and the dreary prospect before him, completely overwhelmed him, although he did not think of himself. He wished he had died. He did not care to live. For some days after he learnt the news, Ralph was listless and morose, and the knight seemed nearly as miserable. It was with the utmost difficulty the girl was able to get either to take any food, and she, poor child, at last was beginning to lose all interest in anything. Their life was very uncomfortable. There was nothing to divert them from their own sad thoughts. The Breton peasants with whom they had taken refuge belonged to one of the Breton nobles, who had fallen at St Aubin, and had hitherto proved themselves faithful enough. But there was nothing beyond their natural good nature to keep them so. It was true the money the fugitives had brought with them was ample payment for the services performed, but when that was gone there seemed little left to restrain the Bretons betraying them. In spite of the proud boast of the Seigneur de Rohan--"Jamais Breton ne fit trahison"--there was only too much likelihood that in a few days the three fugitives would be delivered up to their enemies.
One day as they were sitting listlessly outside the cottage on a boulder of granite, gazing wistfully at the sea sparkling among the innumerable rocks which encumbered the large bay before them, the peasant woman came out, and looking about her, approached the girl. After talking earnestly for some time she went back to the house, and the girl turned to her father with a face paler than usual.
"Father," she said, "we must get away at once. Marie says she has heard men-at-arms are coming this evening, and we have but little time to escape. She has given us warning at the peril of her life, so she says; and there is an Englishman, she tells me, who has been asking about us all round the country. He is a one-eyed young man, she says."
Ralph looked up. He had now heard of the treachery of Bowerman. He now knew that the knight who had saved him was no other but Sir George Lisle, and that the girl whose glove he had worn in the tournament was Magdalen Lisle, niece of Yolande, and heiress to all the Lisle estates, if only her father were restored to his proper position.
Magdalen had taken no pains to conceal her dislike of Bowerman, and her pleasure on finding that her father no longer trusted him, and that he equally shared her dislike, was very great. In the necessity of their prompt escape from the battlefield, all examination of the dead was precluded, and neither Sir George Lisle nor his daughter knew whether Bowerman had survived. But now Marie told them of this Englishman, the girl's fears were aroused. Bowerman had urged his suit with her father during their intercourse in France, and Sir George Lisle had received his advances very coldly, and Magdalen dreaded his finding them, especially as her father's conduct in defending the wounded Captain of the Wight must have been observed.
The danger was imminent. The little hut where they had taken refuge was on the edge of a rocky bay not far from St Malo, but the intervening country was scoured by the French troops, and escape by land was next to impossible.
"We must go by sea," said Sir George. "There is Jean's old boat."
"But the tide is out, father! look where it is!" said Magdalen, pointing in dismay to the long stretch of sand, strewn with boulders and piles of sharp rocks protruding in all directions, while away on the edge of this waste the sea was breaking on a reef of ugly points of granite, black with the weather and time, and grinning like the teeth of some wild animal, amid the foam and froth of the sea. It was too true; the tide would not come in enough to float the clumsy boat before it would be dark, and from what Marie said, the men-at-arms would be there before dusk.
"We must try and push the boat down," said Sir George.
They went back to the hut, and searching in the shed where the few tools belonging to the labourer were kept, Ralph found some spars that would serve for rollers.